ABC's
by skeptic skeleton
Summary: Mostly fluffy and cute moments that Callie spends with her new foster siblings that fall in alphabetical order.
1. Avengers

**Okay, so I came up with this after coming across a Jesus/Callie sibling fic called _Bathroom Lullaby_ by monkiimax (Totally amazing for when you're for a fluffy read, by the way) and I just thought of this. But this is lighter than that fic in the sake of exploring real "siblinghood" with these two. (If there is such a thing.)**

**It's basically a bunch of one-shots going by the letters of the alphabet. I'm not sure if they're will be any song-fics, or if any will be AU or not. But if someone requests that kind, then I can probably do it.**

* * *

_Avengers_

jesus&callie

* * *

It was a dull Tuesday afternoon when Callie popped the question.

"Jesus, what's an Avenger?"

The poor boy was so stunned, he nearly dropped the plate Callie had handed him to dry. He recovered quickly, holding it steady in his hands and running his towel over his surface and around it's rim. When Callie saw how startled he seemed to be by her question, she pointed to his shirt with the glance in her hand.

Jesus glanced down. He'd been wearing his Avengers shirt that he found hiding in the back of his closet from some years ago and completely forgot.

"You've really never heard of The Avengers?" he asked, half bemused, half amused by this possibility.

In response she squinted, handing over the glass for him to dry and stack to be put away later. Finally Callie shrugged. "I think Jude said something about a while ago," she replied offhandedly. "Are they comic-book type thing?"

At this, he scoffed. "They are more than just some _comic-book type thing_," Jesus insisted, ignoring the Callie rolled her eyes at this. "Come on." In a stern kind of manner, he grabbed her wrists, dropped their dish supplies (dishes could not be compared to a situation as dire as someone not ever hearing of something as huge as The Avengers.)

"Marvel is the biggest thing behind Disney," he continued, stopping when they reach the family room. Callie seated herself on a corner of the couch. Jesus knelt in front of a cabinet and began sifting through several DVD cases at a time, muttering titles under his breath as he searched.

"Marvel...?" Callie prompted.

Jesus sighed, haking his head as he brought a hefty stack of movies to his side. Curiously, Callie leaned forward to peek at the first case.

"Iron Man?"

He nodded excitedly, the girl watching his head bob back and forth so fast it was a wonder his beanie managed to stay on his head. "Yup, my personal favorite," he added as he stuck it in the DVD player. Jesus made sure to snag the remote off the coffee table as he sat down next to Callie. He kicked up his feet, placing them on the coffee table. "It's the beginning of an age."

Callie rolled her eyes, hardly believing this, as old previews began to play. "Why don't you just skip through the previews? All these movies are out anyway?" she asked when they continued to play.

Jesus turned to here. "If you're going to watch the beginning of an age, you have to watch all of the steps and phases," he explained.

She looked to him in pure bewilerment, then to the preview playing for College Road Trip, a pig standing in the middle of a hallway on the screen. "Really? You're sure about that?"

He nodded enthusiactically. "Positive."

So they suffered through the previews, Callie often pointing out which movies she thought were lames and Jesus asking which ones she'd actually seen. (Suffice to say, he wasn't impressed when she'd only heard about two out of seven of them, but seen none. With his claim of going to the movie store soon and dragging her along, Callie regretted her decision of not just going along.)

After five minutes or so of bickering over the last preview they'd seen, Callie pointed to the screen. "You gonna press play anytime soon...?" she prompted, folding her arms over her chest.

Jesus ignored her grumpy tone - he simply wrote it off as no one ever taking a stand against the movies she found dumb - and pressed play to her command.

The first half hour of the movie played in silence, Callie following along critically while Jesus leaned forward in his seat every five minutes. At one point Callie made a grab for the back of his shirt to keep him seat on the couch instead of having his stomach hit the edge of the coffee table.

(Callie knew from past experience that this hurt like hell and really didn't want their mothers coming home to Jesus rolled up on the floor in a ball of pain while spouting cuss words - again, she knew from experience that this was the given reaction.)

"So, this guy stays dead, right?" Callie asked when Yinsen, Tony Stark's dead friend and partner, was mentioned later on. "I mean, he doesn't come back at the end or something as a villian or anything? Because I find that would really suck for Iron Man to get stranded in the desert for some backstabbing bastard."

At this, Jesus cracked a smile. "Watch and see, won't you?"

* * *

Later that night, Stef quietly snuck in through the front door, having just clocked out of working the graveyard shift. She felt exhausted and an impending headache and really just wanted her bed.

But, she stopped, hearing loud music come from the family room. Out loud, she sighed, mentally counting all the times she told the children to turn off the TV when they were done with it. Sometimes, people never learn.

Stef stalked into the room to turn it off herself when she came across a shocking and incredibly cute sight.

Callie and Jesus were fast asleep on the couch. Callie had a blanket thrown lazily over her while Jesus's head leaned against the back of the couch, his legs still propped up on the coffee table and his arm thrown over the back of the couch as it supported Callie's head.

She smiled at this picture as she began to manuver over Jesus's legs to reach the remote that laid between the two. Stef glanced at the case open and laying face-down on the on the table. Iron Man? How would Jesus have convinced Callie to watch this? She wondered as the family room was sent into dimness when she shut the rolling credits off.

For a moment Stef considered waking them up and sending off to bed for a proper sleep that was not on a stiff couch and in proper sleep wear. But after looking at the two foster siblings again, she sighed and shook her head, taking one end of the blanket to place it over Jesus and tuck it around both their bodies.

With a kiss to each of their foreheads, Stef turnedand started up the stairs.

* * *

"Callie."

She groaned, flopping on to her stomach and burying her head into her mattress.

Another shake to her shoulder. "Seriously, Callie, I know you can hear me."

Finally, she gave in to the annoying voice above her and the fast shakes to her shoulder. "What do you want, Jesus?"

Above her Jesus grinned, still in the sweats he slept in last night. "Come on, we have a marathon to finish."

Callie sat up and looked at him crossly as she slowly sat up, blowing a rogue piece of hair out of her face. "Jesus," she said slowly as she looked to her clock. "It's six in the morning on a Saturday. Avengers can wait until noon."

He shook his head, pulling at her arm. "Com'n Callie!" he begged quietly. "We put off the age of Avengers all week."

"Then they can wait six more hours!"

"You can't watch the beginning of an age then put off the rest of it! It's unheard of!"

"Callie!" snapped a voice from a bundle of blankets on Mariana's bed. "Just go with him. He'll never leave you alone if you don't, you know."

Finally, she gave in to this undeniably true statement and swung her legs over the side of her bed, wrapping her quilt tightly around her shoulders.

"This better be worth it," Callied muttered grouchily as Jesus dragged her downstairs and sat her down on the couch much like Tuesday night.

Jesus shook off her complaints as he popped in the next DVD. "The Incredible Hulk," he exclaimed as he took his seat next to her.

"How many movies are you gonna make me watch today?" Callie asked irritably.

He ignored her snappish tone. "Only five," Jesus said. "But really six, if count the third Iron Man - I'm taking you to tomorrow."

Callie groaned. "Why?"

"Because the only proper way to watch an age - an age of heroes, mind you - is to watch it from the beginning to the current phase!"

"And movies are considered phases?" she snorted incredulously.

Jesus bobbed his head in response. "Duh."

She sighed, giving up when seeing he was not going to let her win.

Like with Iron Man, he made her suffer through the previews, bantering with her about her poor movie viewing skills, and gauranteed that he would show her pleasures that she'd been missing out on upon not seeing them in the first place.

(Callie mentally chided herself for, again, not going along like she had seen him when she really hadn't.)

Two hours later, when Jesus was busy popping in the next movie - Iron Man 2, twice as better as the first, apparently - Callie found herself admitting, "Okay, the Avengers aren't horrible."

But at eight am, Callie can't be sure if exhaustion was clouding her judgement or not, so she quietly made herself a cup of coffee from the fresh pot waiting for Stef and Lena, telling herself sneaking some was for the sake of movie observation.

Plus, she was suffering from caffine withdrawl and needed a pick-me-up.

* * *

About twelve hours later Callie realized she wasted her day in wrinkled pajamas and a quilt on the couch with a shirtless Jesus who never changed out of his sleep wear choice of sweatpants. While they spent all day watching fictional superheroes on a screen for so long she had to take _blink breaks _from time to time.

"Good god, have you two been in front of that TV all day?" Brandon asked. Callie was acutely aware that he had just been arriving home from an outing with Talya, and that he was staring at their stack of Marvel movies that was standing on the coffee table. If she hadn't been so focused on The Avengers, she would have cared much more than just nodding and brushing his presence off.

"Not all day," Jesus protested as the ending scene began to come to a close. "We had four bathroom breaks and a lunch break."

"Why?" Callie could feel Brandon's eyes on her, wondeing why her, a sharp-tongued orphan girl was spending fourteen hours with her foster brother watching super hero movies.

"Because apparently my poor childhood made me miss a revolution," Callie said in response.

* * *

**Okay, so this may suck but this was my attempt at a humorous Foster fic. Jesus and Callie just strike me as having that kind of sibling and I couldn't help it.**

**I only spent two days on it, so this is really poorly edited.**

**If anyone has any ideas for the next chapter - B's - then I'm open to suggestions. Please drop them in a review and keep reading as the story progresses!**


	2. Basketball Coach

**How many reviews I got for the first chapter just blew my mind. I loved and smiled at everything people said and I really hope you continue to show your support throughout the rest of the story.**

**A lot of reviews made me laugh; it's nice to know that people also like the sibling vibe, because that's mostly what these chapters will be, but ones like this will be a tad different.**

**Okay, I'm done now.**

* * *

_Basketball Coach_

brandon&callie

* * *

Callie's memories of sports weren't that happy and bright. While she had been very eager to be outside and active just like any other kid, when she and Jude entered the system, her passion for being energetic died along with her vulnerability.

But her weakly supported childhood was only partially the reason of her lack of interest in sport activities. The other reason can be found in her various memories of hits and injuries being delivered with baseball bats, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks, and other various equipment she was later forced to clean up for bossy foster brothers.

Fortunately, she found none of those problems with the Fosters.

With their caring nature came a lack for any major sport. Callie spent some time with Jesus, just sitting on the porch and talking nothing with him while he showed her how to use a skateboard. Just harmless fun while he taught her how to balance herself and push off. Callie could start to get use to that, hanging out with a foster brother her age that didn't want something from her or to beat her.

Brandon, although similar, was a completely different story.

Callie had been getting a glass of water from the kitchen when she passed by a window and heard the thumps. The sound made her wince from hearing the exact sound, although from very different activities, but she looked to see him, dribbling a basketball and shooting, sometimes to have it bank off the rim and come sailing back at him.

Basketball was something new to Callie. From all the television Jesus made her watch (the thought of her being as inaccurate with TV as she was with movies frightened him), it was a general thing for all boys to have an attraction to basketball, whether on a team or playing stupid games in a friend's driveway. But she couldn't recall any of her past foster siblings ever showing an interest for the sport like Brandon did.

Suffice to say, she was a bit curious as to see why this might be.

"Hey," Callie called out. She came more into the driveway, glass put to sit on the counter and await her return. The slight night breeze bit at her arms through her thin sleeves, her socks doing no good against the coldness of the concrete.

Brandon startled, lost his rhythm with the ball, sending it a few inches from his fingertips as it bounced.

"Oh, hey Callie," he greeted her as she walked closer. "I didn't think anyone was still up by now."

She shrugged. "I just needed a drink and saw—well, heard you."

Brandon regained his control, letting it bounce up and down beneath his fingertips. The two fell into silence, Callie carefully standing aside and watching him shoot, sometimes to hear to the swish of the net or the metal clunk of the rim.

"Are you…on a team or anything?" she asked as he picked his ball off the ground.

Brandon began dribbling the ball between his hands, slowly. "Nah, my parents were jocks," he said simply. "I guess some of it was passed on to me. But not much, I suck." As if to prove his point, he went for a hoop, obviously meaning to miss, only to have it bounce in the center of the square and swish through the net.

"Really? Because it seems to me you could be much worse," Callie retorted.

With this, she was left with nothing to continue the conversation. She wasn't used to such modesty coming from anyone, much less a boy. Whether they expected to be showered in compliments or agreed with, she couldn't be sure.

"So, have you ever played?" Brandon picked up his ball again, cutting up the slow _thump-thump-thump_ of the ball. Balanced in one hand, he held it out to her.

Although Callie had never played basketball except outside middle school PE classes, she it and began a sloppy dribbling sequence, letting the rubber hit off gently from the tip of her fingers. She wasn't very good, the last time she ever touched a basketball being the eighth grade, but it didn't start rolling around the driveway either.

"I suck at shooting," Callie commented as she kept up her dribbling. The ball smack the driveway with more force and less smoothness than when Brandon had it. She could feel his eyes burning into the crown of her head as she focused on the ball's movements. "I never was able to follow through right."

Brandon shrugged, hands stuffed in the pocket of his jeans. "I could always teach you…if someday you wanted to learn."

Callie shrugged, stopping the ball and tossing it back at him. "Maybe." She scratched the back of her head, looking up to the stars. "I better—head inside, I guess."

"'Night Callie," Brandon called as she started her retreat back to her glass of water, probably warm and flat by now.

She flicked a wave over her shoulder, slipping back inside.

And God was she right. That first sip of water she took tasted disgusting. But Callie downed it anyway.

* * *

The next night, the chance to take him up on his offer came earlier than she would have thought.

If sappy teenage TV movies were anything to go by (and in Callie's personal opinion they weren't for so many reasons) she would have been back with him on the little basketball setup in the driveway in her pajamas and late in the night like last time.

But no—when she finally did, it was after a lot of thinking and some help from Jesus. They'd been walking home together from school when she brought up (very casually, she congratulated herself) Brandon's offer.

"It would be nice for you to get into sports and stuff at school," Jesus said. "You know, find your crowd."

Callie had to agree with this. "I guess," she said stubbornly, "but don't you have to have clothes for that? And, you know, proper shoes?" She made a point of kicking one of her shoes in the air, the beat up Vans making a slight arc.

"And it's not like I can do much in jeans and a sweatshirt," she added.

Jesus shrugged, jogging backward as he talked to her. "I could give you some stuff." He winked, adding slyly, "Plus I have a way of sneaking Mariana's stuff without her knowing."

Now, Callie stood outside in Jesus's Avengers muscle tee and Mariana's old neon green volleyball sweats. Needless to say, she felt like a highlighter.

"Whoa," Brandon said as he popped out of the garage, where Callie learned they were supposed to store all sport's related things. The basketball was tucked safely under his arm. "Aren't you…bright looking?"

Callie scowled at him. Unlike before, the sun was still up but the sky was darkening, softening from the day's pretty blue to an evening pink and orange glow. Surely she couldn't have been _that_ _bright._

"Can we just get started already?" she asked, shifting her way and crossing her arms over her chest. She and Mariana weren't exactly the same size and her calves felt extremely unsuited to be in such tight martial. This uncomfortableness irritated her; the bagginess of Jesus's shirt against the slightly chilled breeze wasn't helping.

But it was better than running and splitting a pair of her only pants with her, so she didn't complain…much.

Brandon himself wasn't exactly suited up for playing, but then again, he was the coach. All he had to do was point out everything she did wrong and stands on the sidelines.

God, how fun. Not.

"So, you ready to start with form?" Brandon walked closer, dribbling as he did. Callie watched as he picked it up when it bounced back up, and passed it to her, starting from his chest and thrusting the ball forward, elbows out.

Caught off guard, she stumbled forward with catching it, the sphere nearly landing against her chest.

Brandon walked closer, grabbing her arms and putting them the same way his had been. "This is called the chest pass," he explained once she was standing exactly as he had, her elbow out, hands holding the ball to the center of her chest. Once he made sure she knew what to do ("Step forward and push toward the person's chest"), he moved to be a couple feet in front of her.

He held his arms in a way that mimicked what he showed her. "Now pass," he said calmly.

Callie pushed, her arms extending in front her while the ball sailed in a slight arched motion to Brandon's hands. Poised perfectly at his chest.

He smiled, catching it with ease. "Nice," Brandon commented. "Let's try that again."

For an hour past dark, the two continued to work on passing and talking. Callie was surprised by how easy it was to talk to him, even though he had made it easy from the moment he met her. But the crossover to different topics was so smooth—no awkward pauses or weird silences. It was nice.

And for the first time in a long, Callie let herself unwind and enjoy it.

* * *

"Callie, Brandon!"

Callie jumped, her arms up in mid-motion for the overhead pass. Startled, she lowered the ball to be safely tucked underneath her arm as Lena smiled at them from the doorway.

"Time to come in," she called out to them as she began to let herself back inside.

Casually, Callie shook her head and tossed the ball to Brandon. He spun and was already on his way to the garage before she could take her first steps to the door.

After watching him move closer and closer to the garage door, with some pushy scolding from herself, Callie called out to his retreating figure, "I had fun!"

Brandon turned.

She looked at him. Curly hair blown slightly by the drying breeze, ball tucked safely under his arm. He smiled his goofy, almost hidden smile. "Me too," he said as he continued his walk to the garage. "I really did."

* * *

**Okay, I know this isn't as good as the first one, but it's also a little more serious than the first chapter because that's how Brandon and Callie are around each other—serious and intense.**

**Plus, Jesus and Callie together are just really hard to top, 'kay?**

**Please leave a review and suggestions for C! I always love hearing your feedback and whether or not I get suckier every time I write.**


	3. Cupcakes

**Hey, I'm back again. Well, duh, but…you know what? Whatever. Screw awkward introductions.**

**There have been a lot of pleading and suggestions so here's what I came up with:**

**So far, there's a big majority of reviewers who want for Jesus/Callie sibling-shots for this. But I did promise this would be all of Callie's foster siblings, and it will stay that way. But, I am willing to do two Jesus/Callie ones with a Brandon/Callie and Mariana/Callie one in between. That will be the pattern.**

**To put it in a less confusing way, here's an example—D and E would both be J/C but F would B/C and G would be M/C.**

**And someone asked for Lena and Stef to have a few, but I'm not sure. If I get five more reviews saying they want the moms to be in this too, then I'll do it. As long as you're also willing to give them ideas as well.**

**This idea came from a guest reviewer, I believe it did, so if you're reading this, and you know who you are, thank you for the idea and I love your support for this story. Shout-out to you!**

**Whew, super long A/N over.**

* * *

_Cupcakes_

mariana&callie

* * *

The two girls never had gotten along that well before, but they had both made it clear a while ago that they didn't hate each other. Callie found it more of a tolerance type of system, and she wasn't about to step beyond the line of homework questions and asking if she needed anything from the kitchen to ruin it.

And Mariana never seemed to break this unspoken truce either. They stuck to their sides of the room and kept it that way. That was perfectly fine.

So imagine Callie's surprise when Mariana is standing at the foot of her bed, holding out a normal-sized packet of Skittles to her.

"You have a sweet tooth, right?" she asked when Callie just stared, frozen in her position on her bed.

Reluctantly, Callie nodded in response. "Thanks," she said slowly, reaching out and tenderly taking the small red packets of sweets from the girl's hand, looking at it.

"Skittles," she said dubiously, "I haven't had those in a while."

Mariana shrugged, passing off her unusually kind gesture as nothing. "Lexi and I stocked up too much at the gas station after school," she dismissed blandly, adding in, "Lexi's brother has a car and was dropping us off," when seeing Callie's look.

Callie placed the bag of candy on her bedside table, saving it for later.

"I'm going to get something to drink," she announced a few moments later, rolling off her bed and heading toward the door. "Want anything?"

Mariana shook her head, attention now on her latest magazine. "Nah, I'm good."

Callie shrugged and continued her way to the kitchen, humming a song Jesus made her listen to not too long ago.

She opened the fridge, grabbing a Vitamin Water and an apple, intent on grabbing back to her room to finally get a start on the unnecessarily large pile of homework she had to do before next week. But Callie was quickly stopped, startled as Jesus launched to a skidding stop in front of her, on his skateboard like always.

Warily, she blinked at him, taking a sip of her drink. "Yes?"

He smiled sheepishly at her. "I need a favor," he said, grabbing her shoulders. (Callie was used to this, Jesus always grabbing on to the nearest thing or person to steady himself.) "It won't take long, I promise."

Callie raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay, you have my attention."

Jesus smiled at her, relief crawling into his eyes with obvious excitement at her answer. "Okay, so basically the story begins on how Lexi really has me whipped." Callie snorted at this, already knowing this fact but took another sip of her water, prompting him to keep going. "And she and the rest of the volleyball team wanted to raise money for new volleyballs because honestly, the school ones suck ass. So, she begged me to make the cupcakes so they could have a bake sale."

"Why couldn't she make her own cupcakes?" Callie asked blandly. She already didn't like how this story was going.

"Because she and Shelby are on cookie and poster duty," he said, like this was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Why do I have to do it?" Callie whined, finally getting to where she didn't want to. Where she also didn't want to do her homework, it seemed a more fun than being up to her elbows in cake mix.

Jesus grinned at her. "Because you love me."

"And when was this notion passed? And why did I miss the meeting?"

He sighed, widening his eyes and pouting at her. "_Please_."

Callie tried to look away, cringing. "Oh God, please don't pull that with me."

He continued pouting, sticking out his bottom lip a bit more. "Please, I promise I won't ask you for anything else."

She snorted again. "We both know that's a lie."

Jesus sighed, pouting a little bit more, knowing Callie was _this close _to cracking. "Pretty please? Don't you want me to have a full, healthy relationship with the girl I love?"

"Then why do I have to spoil her?" Callie sputtered, now deeply annoyed as she looked to her foster brother. But finally, her resolve cracked and fell like weak debris. "Fine," she muttered crossly. "I'll spend my Friday working to please your spoiled girlfriend."

Jesus beamed, his wide grin nearly breaking his face as he squeezed her tightly before skating off.

Callie sighed obnoxiously, hearing the distance thud and a swear as Jesus undoubtedly tripped and fell on his ass.

God, he'll never change.

With a mournful bite of her apple, Callie went to work on finding her ingredients, or otherwise seeing if they even had cupcake mix. She felt kind of guilty as she snooped through the cabinets, slamming one after another. The rules she was used to was not to not touch anything or use anything without specific permission of doing so. It just seemed like an unhealthy instinct to run it past Stef and Lena the very idea of making cupcakes.

Suffice to say, when she finally found the two boxes of cake mix standing side by side in a drawer near the fridge, Callie felt pretty badass when she set them on the counter.

Everyone around school had been talking about the charity week event the girls' volleyball team was throwing. Even though Jesus would be taking most of the credit, Callie still wanted them to somewhat edible—something the treats will not if she made them herself alone. Because besides cereal, toast, and being able to stick pasta in boiled water, her kitchen skills were horribly weak.

She was going to need to call in back-up.

"Mariana?" Callie called, jogging to the start of the stairs.

"What?" came her foster sister's faint yell of response.

Callie looked back in the direction of the kitchen, where the vanilla and chocolate mixes stood on the counter. "How do you feel about some cupcakes?"

Six minutes later, each of the girls were standing in separate parts of the kitchen, wearing aprons and up to their elbows in cake mix, vegetable oil, and egg.

"I can't believe you fell for the Puppy Eyes trick," Mariana muttered, her arm moving in fast and smooth circular motions as she whipped the batter easily with her whisk. She had tied her hair shortly after (reluctantly) giving in to Callie's pleas of helping her. While her kitchen skills weren't as vast as her mothers', she did have experience of making birthday cakes and cookies with her mothers' for the birthdays celebrated in the house.

"It's the oldest trick in the book," she continues wryly, glancing at the box as the oven let out its alert beep. It was finally done preheating, signaling her that she could pop her batch into the oven after pouring it into the pan.

Carefully, Mariana grabbed a pack of pretty purpled-hearted cupcake papers and gently pressed them into the holes.

While she did this, Callie watched, slowly whisking her chocolate batter in her bowl. This kind of atmosphere seemed so odd to her; calm and serene, like everything was just right. It made her feel a bit uneasy and out of balance with herself, but just…good at the same time.

"I've never done this before," Callie admitted suddenly, staring into the swirls of her batter. "I never had many foster sisters—not any that were good like this. The last time I ever even looked at a thing of cake mix…was with my mom when I was eight."

Mariana tensed, her movements becoming slower and less eased as she listened.

She always kept her distance with Callie. She seemed nice enough—not threatening to kill or hurt anybody like movies would suggest with her situation. But she always was so in herself, very locked up and quiet. Mariana didn't let herself pry, knowing that she was already in deep shit with her own personal problem to bare the weight of somebody else's.

But this was different. She wasn't prying or bugging or anything of the sort. Callie found her trustworthy, someone that she could share this with. Knowing her foster sister found this in her, Mariana felt proud.

It was only fair for her to return the favor.

Mariana gently set the pan in the oven, setting the oven's timer and closed the door. "I know what it's like," she said quietly. Her hands twisted the rag she was using to clean up in her hold, the fingers clenching on it tightly. "My father wasn't that good to us. I can't remember much about him, except that Jesus hated him and I didn't know why. When the CPS lady told us he died in a fire at his work…I didn't know what to feel."

Callie froze her whisk limp in her slacked hold. This was new, unexplored territory. Never once had she exchanged sad, pitiful past stories with a foster sibling. She never had to, because the only burdened sibling she had was Jude, and they bared the same scars, except in different ways.

It never occurred to her that such a sweet interaction could happen to her. While it was indeed awkward, it was kind of…comforting in the same way.

Mariana looked down thoughtfully at the rest of her batter, before sliding her gaze to Callie's bowl, yet to have been put in the pan.

"We better stop with this confessing," she muttered, grabbing two other cupcake pans. "The last thing we need is Lexi on our ass for tears ruining the cupcakes."

* * *

**I know the ending sucks, but I'm not yet used to writing for these two. Not yet, anyway.**

**Plus I've been working on this on and off for a week or so, so the mood wasn't right on me.**

**Please leave a review saying your thoughts about the chapter and what I said in the above A/N.**

**PS: The next chapter won't be as humorous as the first J/C fic, just saying.**


	4. Deep

**Like promised, this is the first of two Jesus/Callie fics in a row, this one obviously being D and the next one being E. **

**Like a lot of you, I really like the sibling humor of these two, but I also think they show a lot of potential in some angsty, hurt/comfort situations as well, which came pretty easily to me considering how a lot of Callie's past is left unmentioned. (Which bothers me endlessly, but I'll manage.)**

**But I'm best a writing them with a funny and excited Jesus and a witty and sarcastic Callie, so the next one will probably be that way.**

* * *

_Deep_

jesus&callie

* * *

_If someone were to ask me, even at the most random times, I would be able to tell them what it's like to die._

_While I walk, talk, sleep, breathe, and eat, my emotional appeal as a human has degraded at a very alarming rate. I know what it feels like to be nothing, just a body, walking the planes of Earth without a soul._

_Sometimes it's hard to be up the front that I use, for Jude and the Fosters, because there are days I don't want to be that tough orphan girl they see me as, the days where I want to be a shell of a girl who can cry and scream and not be judged for how everything I do is my fault._

_At times people forget that I was there. I know the things I did are because of me, I know that the life I have—all the scars, bruises and faces I have to master—is my fucked up mess._

_But they don't care about that. All they care about is making sure I never forget it._

Callie set her pencil down, her hand shaking as she closed her journal. She vowed to never write in a journal, instead do her English assignments on loose leaf paper and stick it in a folder that didn't provoke anyone's interest. But after her teacher shunned her work of that strategy, she forced herself to use that damned journal.

Even though Talya wasn't as big a threat as she used to be, whenever she wrote something private that gave a glimpse into the dirty life she and Jude had before meeting the Fosters it felt like someone was going to take her secrets and expose her scars.

Callie couldn't live with that happening again.

Truth be told, Callie considered herself a good writer. She enjoyed works of fiction, unrealistic short stories, and things of that nature, but her English teacher didn't seem to share the same enjoyment of such writing with her. Instead he amused himself with making them write of dark feelings that weighed a person's mind down—emotions like guilt, anxiety, depression, and remorse.

God did Callie hate English class.

"Hey, Callie." She jumped, having spaced out. Annoyed, Callie glanced up, seeing Jesus leaning against the doorway.

They were the only two home. Stef and Lena were having a double date with Lexi's parents, Mariana had snagged another date with Garrett, and Brandon had let Jude tag along with him and Mike to the batting cages.

Jesus was to go with them, but had suddenly fallen "sick."

Callie was home because Wyatt was busy, and her homework could no longer be ignored.

"Shouldn't you be in bed or parked next to the toilet?" Callie said knowingly, raising her eyebrows. She knew that Jesus had never been sick; the idea of him being on a guy-outing with Mike on the other hand might have been enough to make him sick.

He smirked, coming in to the room. "No, my sudden aches and nausea seemed to have cleared," he told her, grinning ear to ear.

She sighed, scooting over so that he could sit down next to her. "What is it you want? Because unless you can help me with my History homework on the great Shakespeare, you are not needed in here."

Jesus chuckled. Callie rolled her eyes, conveniently leaving out that she was in desperate need of a counter emotion for all her pain and suffering her damn English teacher was making her write—re-experience all these things, was that really a way to teach a student?

"Come on, homework can't be that much more fun than me, can it?" Jesus guffawed, teasingly tossing her nearest textbook out of reach. "Now, entertain me!"

Callie bit her tongue, wanting to say that he could have been well entertained with his brothers and Mike. But, like Jesus, Callie wasn't as fond of Mike as Stef would want them to be. In her opinion, Mike was needy, always bugging Brandon for attention like a spoiled child. And then when he got an opportunity to have it, he didn't work for it. It might be that Jesus saw this in him too, but Callie wasn't going to open her big mouth and ask. No sir.

"Fine." Callie sat up, looking at him amused. "If I were to entertain you, what would I do? And don't you dare say another super hero marathon, Jesus Foster! My eyes haven't recovered from the last one!"

He stuck out his tongue. "Such a baby. It wasn't that long."

"Are you kidding me? All together it was sixteen hours of Marvel heroes! And I only wanted to know what they were!"

"See? And now you know, because you can correctly use the name Marvel with pride."

"I wouldn't say pride is one of the words that come up when I think of it…"

Jesus snorted, gently knocking her shoulder with his. "Whatever, Cal," he said, chuckling "we don't have to watch movies I suppose. But we could waste our time watching mindless videos on the Internet?"

"And that's a step-up how?" Callie asked. But she followed him to his room and watched him pull up YouTube without another word.

* * *

In the end, the two managed to find common ground, Callie's depression over her English assignment the last thing on her mind as Jesus leaned over and adjusted his huge headphones on her head. They made her head feel tiny and heavy.

"Is it really necessary for them to be this big?" Callie asked her voice sounding muffled in her own ears as she turned to Jesus. It made her wonder how loud her voice really was in the room, or if she was just being paranoid.

Their common ground had been listening to each other's music. Because, really, his idea of watching retards in stupid YouTube videos was juvenile, and her suggestion of watching old shows just lacked imagination.

Callie was, in a way, impressed that Jesus was to say something like idiotic videos instead of something she would expect from a teenage boy like him—something that, um, for the increase of innocence, rhymed with _corn_.

"You're going to love this song," Jesus said now, typing in his band into the search bar. Callie remained clueless, following his instructions of keeping her eyes close for the element of surprise.

There, in the end, turned out to be no element, especially none of surprise. But it was interesting to know that they both shared an interest in Imagine Dragons, especially their song Demons.

Callie leaned back against the wall, biting her tongue to resist telling him that this was one of her favorite songs. Instead she let the music play and began to do one of her favorite-slash-most hated past times: thinking.

Jesus was no Jude. He couldn't look at her and suddenly just know what he needed to do, what emotions she was feeling right then. He didn't know what she had gone through, he didn't know her way of thinking. He couldn't just sense her feelings and begin feeling that way too. He hadn't been there when that bastard Liam set her up. He wasn't the innocent little child she had leaned on when her mother died.

Maybe that's way she liked him so much. Jesus was a brother, a friend. He hung out with her, joked around with her, knew how to make her cave into doing things for him, was sweet to her and Jude, treated her like a person. But she couldn't help but note all the times she thought him being as deep as a kiddie pool, and feel a little guilty as he leaned closer to her, shifting so that his back leaned against the wall too.

When the song finally faded out, Callie opened her eyes that she didn't know had been closed.

"Pretty," she muttered, tapping in her search. When she clicked the right video (she was very nitpicky about this kind of thing, but he said nothing of it), she leaned back and let it play.

Jesus made no comment, no sounds of disbelief or snort of amusement. Reluctantly, Callie peeked at him in a quick side glance. He looked a little odd in the ear buds he made himself use. She was much more used to see him with the bulk of headphones on his head.

_Beauty queen of only eighteen_

_She had some trouble with herself_

_He was always there to help her_

_She always belonged to someone else…_

It wasn't really a conscious action, but Callie leaned in a little more, her head brushing his shoulder and her hair rustling against the side of his face. Maybe it was just her imagination, but his body seemed to lean into a little more.

There was no sparks, no romantic flare, nothing scandalous about them at all.

No, he may not have been Jude, but at that moment his cottony T-shirt felt really nice against her cheek, and the way he relaxed around her instead of worrying soothed her in a way she needed.

And Callie really liked that.

* * *

Later that night, at around midnight or so, Callie snuck downstairs, journal and dull pencil in hand. With a click, she illuminated herself and the living room in the small lamp light, casting stretching shadows against the walls.

She sighed. Her head was spinning, she was beyond tired, and there were at least twenty different songs stuck in her head. Not to mention the weird ache in her neck from when she felt asleep with Jesus during their little music session around the thirtieth song.

What in her right mind made her think she was able to write like this?

Callie had yet to figure that out, but she was already writing before she could properly sit on the couch.

_A self-claim loss of yourself is one thing, I discovered today, but a complete renewed view of yourself is something that only someone else can bring out of you._

_I experienced that today, in a home I can't call mine, with people that are only temporary. But today, my temporary brother showed me something._

_I don't think he knows it, but he helped. With my inner pain, this damn assignment. Everything, really._

_And if that isn't what you want me to put down in this stupid thing, then you've never experienced true pain, and suffering. _

_Because everything suffering point is followed by a brighter point._

_Today was mine._

* * *

**Yeah, this chapter sucks. But I don't feel well, and…yeah, I feel like crap. And it's really hard to think of themes that start with D, okay? Can we just leave it at that?**

**The next chapter will be J/C again, with a little guest star from one of the other characters who will also act as a main point. And I bet you can't guess who it is.**

**Reviews would be nice. I'd like to hear if you thought this chapter was as horrible as I thought it was.**

**Oh well, whatever. The next chapter will be better.**

**And, judging by the reviews, there will be some Momma and Callie fics in here, but because of the pattern I have developed and want to keep following, they will probably be paired with someone, like for example, instead of Mariana and Callie, Stef or Lena would be with them too. **

**If any of you could think of ideas for that, that'd be awesome!**

**Love you guys, later!**


	5. Elephant Ear

**Hey, I know it's been forever but I have a good reason, kind of...**

**I've been working on a real book, and I'm always writing on that now in order to get it finished then go back and add and all that good stuff, plus I have much going on Fanfic that I'm always distracted.**

**I had a completely different idea for this, but it sucked, so this is my attempt at more J/C bonding humor. Thinking of fun, writing-worthy stuff for E sucks because there was practically nothing until I thought "Hmm, what would Callie have been deprived of as a child?" and then this happened.**

**Stef will be mentioned a lot in this too, my attempt at adding some motherly bonding in there with them. Sorry if that sucks too.**

* * *

_Elephant Ear_

jesus&callie

* * *

Jesus considered himself to not be a judgmental person. Really, him judging someone would be fairly hypocritical compared to his scarred childhood in the system and current craziness with his birth mother and sister, not to mention the piled on tension between him and Lexi.

A part of him told him that this was why he took his time with reading Callie. When she showed up at the dinner table with her beat-up face and attitude, he didn't know what to think really. She was a picture of his Could Have Been - what his and Mariana's future might have looked like if the Fosters had not found them.

Then, the more Callie opened up to him, Jesus realized her bark was way worse than her fight. She was just another girl, one he could watch cartoons and listen to music with. All the abuse and neglect she and Jude received - no matter how much undeserved - left her with no clue on how to act when being treated with kindness and warm hearts. He couldn't blame that on her; he probably would have acted similarly, if not the same way if put in her shoes and stamped with her past.

Soon, Callie was one of the closest people to him, one he cared very dearly about. Jesus could even find himself calling her his best friend.

Maybe that was why he was so excited about her first trip to the town's carnival. Callie admitted to him that morning she had never been, and that instantly filled Jesus with the promise of the ultimate carnival tour guide - if she could keep up, that is.

While Jude busily chatted with the moms and his siblings, Callie eyed Jesus warily, taking note of his bouncing leg and the way his right hand kept running through his hair. "Did you take your pills this morning?" she asked him lowly.

Jesus cracked a smile at her worried behavior. He figured out that once she began caring about them - him, included - that her motherly, caring nature developed for Jude over the years exposed itself when she thought was wrong.

"I'm fine, sis," he chuckled, lightly knocking his right shoulder with her left, "just excited. And you should be too."

"I am," Callie protested gruffly, turning her head to look out the car window.

"Then loosen up, you're stiffer than a plank."

Jesus knew that she was always tense when thrown into something that involved big crowds with strangers walking all around her, but it wasn't like she was alone either. Callie was going to have fun today and he was there to make sure of it.

When they got there, Jude all but tumbled out, eagerly chattering on about how he couldn't wait to tell Conner all about his day there. Jesus could hear Mariana and Brandon fondly discussing his excited behavior, much like Lena and Stef were as Jude dragged them along to the ticket booth.

Stepping out first, Jesus offered Callie a helpful hand out as she carefully maneuvered her way out of the backseat. She took it and jumped, quickly sliding her hands back to her side as soon as she regained her balance.

"Wow," Callie muttered, her eyes catching sight of the rides in the distance. Jesus watched as her eyes raked over the many people gathering at the gates, her nose no doubt taking in the same sweet, salty smells of greasy junk food that his did.

Jesus could remember a time much like this, when he took her to see the pier on their way home from school one Friday. It was a little out of the way, it being at the far end of the beach in the opposite direction they were supposed to go in, but she looked as amazed as she did now.

The pier, its biggest attractions being the Ferris Wheel and that stupid bottle ring toss game where nerdy boyfriends always tried to win their girlfriend something, was nothing compared to the carnival that came twice a year, every six months.

It too had a Ferris Wheel and several stuffed animal-winning games, but also carts selling churros, corn dogs, any greasy amusement park food you could think of. It also let off fireworks, late at night in the week it's there in June. There was a ride similar to the Tower of Terror called the Frights Drop, and a spinning ride that strapped you into seats that looked like halves of apples named Worm's Whirl that he went on all the time when he was ten.

"Everyone has their phones?" Lena asked as she passed out tickets. Jude stood in between her and Stef, looking anxiously behind him at the crowded entrance of the carnival. When she saw them shake their phones in the air for emphasis, she smiled and nudged her head in the direction of laughter and the greasy sweet smell.

"Alright, let's split up and meet in two hours back at the picnics, yeah?" Stef said, stepping forward. Callie elbowed Jesus lightly, linking their arms together. He knew she had no idea where the picnics were or what to do with herself at someplace that was as close to Disney World as she's ever been, and had held Jesus to bring her tour guide, which he made obvious he would do as he dragged her forward.

Mariana and Brandon went separate directions, Jude marching off in the general direction of the Ferris Wheel with Stef and Lena trailing behind him and talking amongst themselves.

Callie looked to Jesus with raised eyebrows. "Well? Lead the way, o' wise one."

Laughing and rolling his eyes, he latched on to her wrist and began pulling her into the depths of the carnival, ready to show her the joys of amusement park rides.

* * *

Not even half an hour in, Jesus stomach was roaring fiercely. Callie wobbly stood next to him as he began visualizing their way to the general food section of the carnival. It was pretty hard for several reasons; one being that they were coming off their fifth turn on Worm's Whirl and the dizziness was finally beginning to set in, making everything he saw triple itself. Another being that the junk food scent was shooting off people and things in all directions, making it hard for him to decide which one was the right way to go.

Callie grabbed on to his arm stumbling. Jesus nearly laughed out loud. God, they must have looked so drunk right now.

Finally, he decided on straight, mostly because making turns was probably not the best thing to do considering that they could hardly walk in a straight line as it was.

"That'a way," Jesus declared rather loudly, drawing the attention of several passer byers busying keeping tracks of their own kids.

Callie, against her better judgment, snorted out a laugh as she whacked him on the arm she was keeping herself steady with. "Shh, people are beginning to stare."

"So?"

"So lower your voice."

Blinking at her innocently and starting off forward, Jesus asked, "why? We're outside and everything is already loud."

Rolling her eyes, Callie stumbled behind him, following Jesus as he bobbed and weaved his way through the crowd. Every few steps he took the stench of food grew stronger, his stomach roaring more fiercely than before as they finally came to a stop.

Callie looked at the stand in hunger, catching sight of the huge powdery treats right when her nose caught scent of the sweet, sugary smell. They were huge, almost bigger her head, and coated with sugar and white powder, the stickiness evident from a distance.

"What are those?" she asked her foster brother in wonder.

Jesus turned to her, his jaw nearly touching the dead grass below them. "You've never had an elephant ear before?" he asked her shock.

Callie tilted her head at him curiously. "Is that what they're called?"

He shook his head at her, bemused. "Come on, you deprived woman." Jesus grabbed ahold of her hand began dragging her to the stand, his free hand digging out his wallet.

"One large cinnamon elephant ear please," Jesus ordered, pulling out a crumpled ten and sliding it to the bald man in the greasy apron on the other side, "extra powder and double the sugar."

The man gave a grunt, stuffing the money into his apron's pocket as he hollered, "Large cinnamon! Extra coats!"

Once Jesus and Callie turned to find an empty picnic table, Callie lowered her voice and said, "I thought he was alone in there?"

Smirking, Jesus bumped her hip with his as they sat down and said, "I think he was too."

Callie tossed her head back and laughed, her braids catching in the breeze.

Jesus sat back and watched her pull strands of hair from her face, simply amazed. There were a lot of things that the world threw at him in all of his life—a crazy, untrusting biological mother, a crazy sister who couldn't see that her real family was right in front of her, two moms who loved him more than anything, even a gorgeous girlfriend that would turn in her undocumented parents.

But Callie was something else. Sure, she was hot and had amazing talents like playing the guitar and coming with a built-in mother mode, but she was the best friend he could ask for. She was easy to get along with, knew the right thing to say, and was always there—literally, he might add.

It filled his chest with a nice, warm feeling that a lot of her childhood moments were going to be shared with him, even when they were in their teenage years. Her first Avengers marathon, her first carnival, her first elephant ear—he would be there by her side through it all.

Jesus loved that.

Callie and Jesus talked under their order was ready. She had made friends with the new girl in her English class. Apparently her name was McKenzie and she was rocker who hailed from New York.

"We both like the same music," Callie stated casually, swirling her fingers on the table top with a smile, "and she didn't flinch when she looked at me. That gives me a good feeling, no matter how sad that is."

He smiled at her in that crooked, thoughtful way of his.

Right when he was about to comment about how McKenzie should come over sometime, Grease Guy yelled out that their order was ready.

Jesus got up, thanked him, and took their order, making his way back to Callie.

As he set it down, she tipped her head downward curiously, looking at it with wide eyes. "That's huge," she breathed.

"Larger in person, right?" Jesus laughed as Callie just nodded dumbly.

"Well?" he said when she hesitated, her hand hovering. "It won't bite. I promise."

Callie glared and grabbed a piece of it. The elephant ear was split into thin slices of eight, each powdery and dosed in sugar as the inside of it dripped with cinnamon and stickiness.

After letting it dangle in front of her lips for a beat, Callie took a deep breath and nervously took a bite of the tip.

Jesus watched anxiously as she slowly chewed, her face remaining indifferent as she swallowed.

"It was…amazing," Callie decided, taking another bite except it was much larger.

Jesus laughed as a grin slipped onto her face, the tip of her tongue peeking out to lick the cinnamon filling from her lips.

"I knew it," he cried in triumph, doing a completely over the top fist pump in the air, "I brought you to the dark side!" He punctuated the ridiculousness of his sentence with a creepy waggle of his eyebrows.

Callie rolled her eyes, running her hands together to clean them off precariously. "I wouldn't go that far," she muttered, but reached for another piece nonetheless.

"Please, you wouldn't admit anyway!"

The two continued to dine on their sugary treat, talking about anything and nothing. Jesus found it so odd how easily he could slip into conversation with this girl, even at someplace as loud and obnoxious as a carnival picnic table.

Conversation had never been his strongest trait, unless it was bantering or mindless flirting. Even with Mariana he had to tip toe around certain topics.

But with Callie, you knew what to say. He could laugh and tell her the stupidest jokes, and know that he would get the right reply somehow.

It also warmed a place in his chest that they could do it while over elephant ears—her very first at that. It just amazed him how in her first ten years of life, of normalcy before being thrown into the system with her brother (that cursed system, forever be damned, he thought bitterly as he stared at the girl across from him with the braids and specks of sugar on her nose) could have still been robbed of the simplest pleasures.

Like, for instance, sitting with her brother at a picnic table and pigging out on the best creation ever imagined.

Jesus was just glad that Callie experienced eventually, and he was there to share it with her.

* * *

**So, if you've never had an elephant ear, go out and get one now. It's 2am here, but it doesn't matter. Just run to the store and buy one because they are dessert heaven.**

**This chapter is nearly 1000 words longer than usual, you're welcome.**

**I struggled with this chapter because I wasn't sure if I should make it funny or sad, so this happened.**

**The next one is going to be better, and much suited to everyone's liking. **

**I'll give you a hint: F is for Family.**

**That's all for now. Until my next update.**


	6. Family

**So, this is F. It isn't going to be like previous chapters, but it will be Callie-centric like always.**

**This one is set after **_**The Fallout**_**, or better put, it's the night when Callie tells Lena and Stef about Liam.**

**You guys asked for some mama action, and this you will get it. And there will also be a bunch of sibling fluff because it's adorable and yeah.**

**A reviewer asked me to put some brallie in. The only type of B/C I will do is sibling fluff because this is purely family interacting one-shots and everything. Plus I've run dry out of ideas for anyway, so yeah.**

**This was inspired by the Foster fic Truth. I recommend it, fantastic read.**

* * *

_Family_

fosters&callie

* * *

The house was oddly silent.

It was Friday night, a pretty busy night in the foster household. Usually Brandon would be prepping himself with the new material his horrible, terrifying music teacher gave him at his most recent practice; Mariana would be either on her phone or out with her friends, doing something typical teenagers did on a Friday night.

Jude spent most Fridays at his friend Conner's nowadays; and Jesus was usually blasting music loud enough for the walls to shake while Lena and Stef undoubtedly complained about it downstairs in the kitchen.

Callie learned by now that it was somewhat the typical routine.

Instead of the normal business, Callie strained to hear something only to find an oddly off-putting quietness.

She frowned, unused to this shift of routine. She couldn't remember Jesus or Mariana saying anything at the table that morning about going out, although that didn't eliminate the possibility completely.

Brandon's activities were usually pretty low-key anyway, but she couldn't hear the fierce tap of his fingers hitting the keys or the slight, quiet blare of his music through his headphones either, which unnerved her a little.

Callie was never a fan of silence. Quiet was a different thing completely. Quiet was the word to describe when her life was like anyone else's; her ten-year-old life where she could sit on top of the staircase and hear the delicate little clink of her parents' wine glasses hitting against each other and their quiet talk about the day. That was quiet.

This was screaming silence, something Callie unfortunately knew all too well. All of her other foster homes shared that quality at night, where she would lay in whatever poor excuse of a bed she had at that house, sometimes with Jude squished like a bug to her side, and just mourn in the horribleness of that day.

The Olmsteads though, was maybe the worst. Silence was all around her ever since the first time Liam violated her the way he did. It made her world feel mute, and her especially helpless because the silence blared louder than she ever could. And she couldn't say anything, because Jude was happy and his happiness was much more valuable than her safety.

Here, though, at the Fosters, the silence had faded away and Callie had molded herself into the comfortable noise—the proof of living, caring people all around her. And now that it was fading back in, Callie felt the slightest bit panicky.

She had been working on more English homework—the class that had work that would never end. The homework had been to write in their god forsaken journals again, this time about their own meaning and view on the word family, five or more pages.

Callie was still struggling with the first paragraph. Hell, the first _sentence_.

All she had managed was to write in her tiny, quick handwriting _**Family **_at the top of the page.

Sighing, Callie got up from where she was sprawled out her bed, deciding a quick snack would be the best thing to calm her nerves and maybe get her to actually focus on this.

Quietly, she slipped out of Mariana's and hers shared room, being especially careful in case someone had turned in early. Callie found this highly unlike with it only being a quarter past eight, and most of the doors open of the bedroom.

Callie was about to enter the kitchen when she heard a voice—or, more specifically, Jesus' voice.

She frowned, stopping on the last stair and pressing herself to the wall as she listened, her ears instantly picking up on the worried note of his voice.

"Will she be okay? Is she okay right now?" he was asking desperately.

Callie bit her lip, a bad feeling forming in the pit of her stomach as she put two and two together.

She knew Stef and Lena would keep to their promise of keeping this under wraps, but she also wouldn't put it past them to have a secret family meeting that warned the others about her off behavior.

Despite this being a generous act of kindness, Callie knew that the others' had been too wrapped up in their own business to really take note of their moods.

Callie felt a warm feeling spread through her chest and settle in her stomach nonetheless.

She saw Mariana's hand wrap around her brother's hand, the twins squeezing each other's tightly. Callie felt the corner of her lips jerk upwards. She and Mariana did have their many differences, but sharing a room had been good for them the last couple of months.

Brandon was leaning against the counter, his arms crossed stiffly over his chest as he looked around the room indifferently. Honestly, Callie was surprised that he was taking this so well. She didn't know what she had expected once she told him—maybe for him to be more angered or disappointed. But she didn't expect this.

And Jude. It frightened her how calm he sat there, hands tucked into his lap as he looked up at Lena and Stef with sad eyes.

Because of how much she protected him, Callie rarely reminded herself that, one way or another, her little brother had gone through the same things she had. He was just barely thirteen, and handling this much better than she was at sixteen—on the outside anyway. But even Callie couldn't comprehend how he felt on the inside.

"The best thing for us to do," Stef began, cutting off the nervous chatter between everyone, "is to simply be there for her. Don't break your normal routine, and keep thing natural. Lena and I will handle this alright?"

There were a few mutters of agreement.

Callie, her appetite gone, hurried back upstairs, flopping on to her bed and grabbing her English notebook and pencil just a mere seconds before she heard everyone else's footsteps.

She stared blankly at her journal pages as the door creaked open. Mariana slipped in quietly.

The two girls didn't talk. Callie sat stiffly, feeling the tense air. Mariana wanted to ask questions, she knew, the other girl wanted to pry and see why a family meeting would be called specifically about Callie.

Callie was curious on what Mariana actually thought it was. For all she knew, she could be thinking that Stef and Lena suspected she was working as a stripper at a night club downtown.

(The idea was a bit farfetched, and not to mention completely random and bizarre, but Callie did manage to make herself crack a smile with that one.)

"You know you're family here, don't you?"

Callie jumped at the sudden words. She realized how crazy she must've looked, smiling down like an idiot at her journal that was practically blank.

Blinking, she looked at where Mariana was sitting on her own bed, eying her curiously.

The moments where the two girls have a heart-to-heart is very rare, but more often than Callie was used to. They usually occurred late at night when they could hear one another tossing and turning with no one else in the room to vent to.

Now, the last fading streaks of daylight when coming in through their window with the tree's showdown running long and tall against the floor—and both girls were sitting on their respective beds, with the door wide open and giving multiple possibilities to someone else to talk to.

It was a change, but a good change.

"Whatever happens," Mariana continued, her fingers fidgeting with her quilt nervously. She was just as inexperienced with these evening heart confessions as Callie was, which felt pretty refreshing to share an emotion with someone else for once to the other girl. "Family is family."

The words themselves weren't very many, or the most touching words that could have been said at that moment, but Callie knew what Mariana was trying to say and wanted to say because she had the same problem—not being able to form your emotions into words.

"Thank you," was all Callie could say, proving her point exactly, and Mariana smiled and nodded, getting the message.

* * *

An hour or so later everyone was sitting at their respective seats at the dinner table, a large, hot box of pizza placed in the middle for eager hands to grab a slice.

Unlike the others, Callie's slice sat on her plate by her elbow, untouched, as she looked at the cover of English journal distastefully.

She hated personal narratives or anything remotely similar with a passion. She didn't anything in her life too good to write about, considering how her childhood had been tragically shattered by her mother's death and father's place in the state's prison.

Her life had never been good, and certainly writing about all the bad there instead of goodness and kindness was not going to get her a good grade, or achieve the point her teacher was trying to make while assigning this.

"Callie?" a voice suddenly said to her.

Startled, she looked up from the almost invisible dot that her pencil had made when she pressed it against the page, still grasping for ideas that weren't in her reach.

"Hmm?" she asked, looking at Stef, who was gazing at her with concerned, worrisome eyes.

(That was one thing Callie couldn't stand—did people really have to look at her in such a way? Even if they were only worried for her? It drove her mad.)

"What's with the journal?" Stef asked, sounding more curious. Callie breathed out inwardly a sigh of relief. Curiosity she could handle. The thing with foster children was that everyone wanted to know your story. It was something she could handle.

"How do you write about something when you don't have enough of it?" Callie asked instead, scowling at her blank pages in contempt.

It was so easy for her to vent out her feelings and thoughts on music sheets and the chords of her guitar, but when it came to drafting it, she was useless.

"What's the topic?" Lena asked, turning away from where she was at the sink, washing out a couple of wine glasses for herself and Stef. Typically they only had a drink or two when the kids were out or upstairs, but considering the events of that day, she didn't think anyone would care.

Callie paused, taking a moment to gather her nerves. "I have to write about family—what it is to me, why and how."

Everything stilled. Callie felt that damned silence creep in again as every person in the room froze, food half-way to their mouths.

Jude was looking at her, young dark eyes unreadable as he suddenly flipped his gaze back to his mostly eaten piece of pizza.

"Family," Lena began slowly, setting down a now clean glass in front of Stef, her own still in her other hand as she headed to the counter to get the wine bottle. "Is a lot of things. Never just a specific action or word."

Jesus nodded from where he sat beside Callie, Mariana on his other side. "Like, family is sharing things," he chimed, nudging his shoulder with hers with a goofy smirk. "Like music."

"And being able to tell that person anything," Mariana added, giving a small smile, "even in the middle of the night."

Callie cracked a shared smile with her as Brandon spoke up.

"Family is the love and trust that makes a home a home, where you know you can go and never be turned away, for who you are or what your past is."

Jude remained silent as his eyes flickered to Stef and Lena, as curious as Callie was to hear what you have to say.

"Family," Stef said wistfully, "is bad and good. There is no wrong or right way to build a family, or a right belief or a wrong person. The only thing that is wrong about family is the outside people who can't see one even if it's right in front of them."

Lena rubbed Stef shoulder with one hand, swishing her crimson colored wine around and around in her glass.

"Family is us," she said simply, closing off her sentence with a delicate sip.

Stef smiled, looking Callie straight in the eye as she nodded along. "Family is us," she echoed.

* * *

Later that night, Callie silently tip-toed out of her and Mariana's shared bedroom, journal tucked under her arm as she made her way downstairs.

It wasn't that late. The clock had yet to strike midnight as she settled herself on the couch and flicked on one of the less harsh lights, drowning the room in a soft glow bright enough for her to focus on her notebook pages.

During dinner she had written a good two paragraphs in the time span of an hour, which was amazingly good progress from when she was sitting on her bed with each second ticking by, the pencil remaining balanced precariously on her leg as she frowned at the blankness.

_Family is new to me because it is everything that I never had. And, after sixteen years of looking for it, I found it and don't know what to do with it._

_It's love and trust and being able to say the worst thing about yourself because in the end it's okay because those people will love and love you anyway, no matter how bad it is and how long it takes them to not be mad again._

_Family is where you can feel sad and mad and frustrated and scream because of someone else in that family but it will work out anyway because there's that gut feeling that tells you so and in the end that's how it happened._

_I never had that. I didn't have that warmth or strength with me, which makes everything about getting it now feel so off-balanced and odd._

_I'm a foster child, a victim to the system, and moved from house to house._

_But there weren't family in those houses, therefore making them houses instead of homes. Because home is where the heart is, and the heart is with the family._

_A house is just a place where the family can be, but it doesn't have to be there either. Because two loving parents (or just one) can live on the streets with their child in a refrigerator box and still be as much as a family as one living in apartment building with beds to crawl into every night._

_Family is a word, but it's an important one that you can say over and over again without it losing its sound or meaning; maybe that's why it shares those similarities with love—maybe love came after family because family is love._

_I wouldn't be able to tell you a right version of family because there isn't a right one or wrong one, only one that fits you and your loved ones._

_My family is a foster brother who loves listening to music and talking with me; a foster sister who confides in me even late at night when we both can't sleep; another foster brother who loves teaching me new songs to play on the guitar; a younger brother who keeps me in my place; two foster moms who don't care about what other people say about me because they don't believe it._

_I may be a foster, but that doesn't keep me from family, and I don't think it ever will. Soon words like 'foster' and 'system' will only be a thing of my past to soon tell my family and hope they can look past it and see that it isn't me and get over their feelings for it just as I did one day._

By the time Callie was done, it was somewhere around two o'clock in the morning and her hand was aching. She closed it and tossed it onto the coffee table tiredly. She barely had enough time to click off the light before her head hit the nearest couch cushion with a light thunk.

* * *

The next morning, Stef and Lena walked in to the living room, still in their sleepwear with fresh mugs of coffee in their hands as they lightly discussed. They froze, looking on at the sight of the curled up teenage girl on the couch, her arms covered in goose bumps.

"How long do you think she's been down here?" Stef asked, her voice still warm from her gulp of coffee just taken.

Lena sighed, cradling her mug in both hands. "Probably all night, the poor thing."

Callie stirred, shifting in her sleep.

"It's really such a shame that a sweet girl had to go through so much," Stef tsked softly, shaking her head scornfully, "and only sixteen."

"That bastard really needs to be put in his place," Lena muttered into her coffee as she took a big sip.

Stef chortled. "Should we wake her up?"

Lena shook her head. "No, let her rest. She's probably still wiped. Yesterday was a big day."

Her blonde companion nodded her head in agreement. The two sunk into light chatter again as they quietly made their way back into the kitchen.

Callie slowly opened her eyes, seeing them gone. She gave a silent sighed, nestling further into the couch cushions. She couldn't remember the last time someone let her sleep in, or felt concerned without pitying her.

It was nice. Refreshing, even.

* * *

**The ending is wack, and this took forever to write, but it's the longest and has a lil' bit of everything so everybody refrain from killing, me, okay kemosabe?**

**So yeah, review and tell me what you think. I know it sucks but it's long and starts with F so ugh.**


	7. Girl's Day Out

**I know people are saying for more Jesus and Brandon fics with Callie, but the first thing that came to mind when thinking G was girl and this idea was built of that.**

**Because of all the JesusCallie fluff I've been writing, the next one will probably be a BrandonCallie one. But it will not be romance, it will have fluff. I'm not sure how much, but there will be fluff.**

**I'm currently on a road trip, stuck in the car for a day and a half, so everything I write on the road will updated by crappy motel Wi-Fi at night.**

**There will not be many updates throughout the week, so I suggest keeping a lookout for next week, when I'm back and doing a big update haul on this account and my Wattpad (chokingcrayons.)**

**So, yeah. I was thinking of putting mama fluff in this too, but then I realized I would get major writer's block on how they would interact in it, so yeah.**

**Lexi's going to be a special guest star in this one too, kay ya'll?**

* * *

_Girl's Day Out_

mariana&callie

* * *

Callie didn't have time to swallow what was left of the bagel in her mouth before Mariana was glaring at her, arms crossed as she looked at her.

"Whaf?" Callie asked around a mouthful of chewed bagel and cream cheese.

"How could you not tell me it was your birthday?" Mariana cried, throwing her hands up in disbelief and looking the slightest bit offended.

Her gaze shot over to Lena and Stef, who were innocently leaning against the counter, sipping there coffee and avoiding her pointed look.

"I didn't want to make a big deal out of it," Callie said casually, going to take a drink of her orange juice.

"Every birthday is a huge deal!" Mariana insisted with a flap of her hand. "You only turn that age once."

"I'm aware this," Callie said simply, finishing off her juice. She waved goodbye to everyone and grabbed her bag from her feet, starting off toward school.

Mariana turned to her mothers. "How can she just _not _mention her birthday? Doesn't she want to celebrate it?"

"She's probably not used to doing anything on her birthday," Lena said with a sad look.

The girl tilted her head, gesturing for her moms to continue.

"Well, think about it, sweets," Stef added, "she's been in a lot of bad houses with bad families. Not everyone loves celebrate another year of life with their child."

Mariana stayed silent, knowing this was true. Then she thought, just because Callie wasn't used to it, doesn't mean she couldn't do it, right? It's not like Callie said she _didn't_…

"I have an idea!" she suddenly said loudly. Mariana smiled widely. "It's perfect."

* * *

Callie arrived to school a little early, considering she left before she usually did, but her birthday was always an extremely uncomfortable topic for her.

In all her horrible foster homes, she had been able to scrape enough money together to at least get Jude something and make sure his birthday was acknowledged in some way, no matter how small.

It was times like those where Callie wished she had an older sibling to care like that for her. Jude, try as he might, sometimes wasn't enough to fill the obvious void in their lives.

Callie remembered how worrisome Lena and Stef had been on all the money they spent on Mariana and Jesus for the Quinceañera, but they didn't care because they felt like they needed the biggest blowout ever.

Even she couldn't deny that she wanted someone to feel that way toward her for once in her life. Birthday or not, Callie wanted to be able to experience something like that, someone wanting to spoil her even though it would cost a fortune. She wasn't selfish to want that; she was practical. For all of her life, she had gone without that feeling. It seemed like for once the tables could be turned and that someone would find it necessary to buy her something.

Then again, Callie lived in a cruel world called reality, where nothing like that happened to a person like her. Stef and Lena may buy her something pretty, like earrings or a nice bracelet to tape inside a card with a ten dollar gift card or something along the lines of that, but turning seventeen wasn't a big celebration like turning sixteen or being a Hispanic girl turning fifteen.

"How could you not tell me?" a voice accused. Callie jumped, her locker slamming shut with a loud bang.

Jesus leaned against the locker next to her, his eyebrows raised in accusation.

"I didn't tell anybody," Callie insisted, hiking her bag up her shoulder. "Bill must've told Stef and Lena, they talked about it, and Mariana overheard."

"Mariana knows?" Jesus managed.

"Yeah," Callie confirmed slowly, eying him warily. "Why?"

He snorted out a laugh, shaking his head as he began walking away. "Just you wait," he laughed as he disappeared in a swarm of kids going down the hall.

Callie looked to where he had been standing in bemusement.

But she couldn't help the weird, knotted feeling that formed in her stomach as she hurried to her next class.

* * *

By lunch, Mariana's plan had completely formed. Granted, the hardest part of said plan was Callie herself, all the other details quite simple, it was still a plan nonetheless.

But she couldn't do it alone. And no matter how much she loved her family, they couldn't be a part of it either.

Her moms were always too embarrassing when it came to things like clothes shopping. She enjoyed the attention, but all the babying and fussing was too much, even for her. Callie probably wouldn't take too kindly to that kind of behavior either, all the babying would just make her cranky.

And taking the boys along was just a no. For one it was way too awkward for all of them, and boys never knew the right thing to say about an outfit. If they hated it, they were never honest and made you buy the butt-ugly outfit. And if they loved it, they lost all capability to form understandable words.

So Mariana had to go with the next best thing—

"Why can't you two go by yourselves?" Lexi asked, munching on a French fry.

Mariana gave her a pleading look. "Oh, come on! You even admitted that you thought Callie was cool. And it's her birthday! I thought it would be nice for her to hang out with more than one person."

Lexi continued to give her a pointed look.

"It will get you in good with Jesus," Mariana coaxed. Then she wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Well, at least score you a couple bonus points, anyway."

After a long stretch of silence, Lexi gave a sigh of defeat. "Fine," she caved, "I'll meet you at the mall after school.

Mariana squealed, clapping her hands in delight.

* * *

"The mall?" Callie said warily. She had only been there twice, both because of her dress that she had to wear when on Mariana's court.

Her foster sister nodded back and forth like a bobble head, a grin stretched across her face. "Yep! It's going to be so much fun!"

Callie slapped a smile onto her face, and found herself meaning it, only a little. The gesture, even though she found it ridiculous, was sweet.

"I don't have any money," Callie insisted as Mariana pulled her through the huge glass doors. Their shoes clicked against the marble tiles of the main entrance, fountain spitting water in the air in front of them. "Besides the five bucks in my pocket."

_Which, here, wouldn't buy me more than a pack of gum by the looks of it,_ Callie thought to herself. This mall had to be, hands down, the second fanciest place she ever stepped into, the banquet hall for the Quinceañera being first.

Mariana rolled her eyes, snapping her head from side to side as she pulled them to a stop right at the base of the fountain. "Don't be silly; moms let me use their credit card."

Oh, joy. Now Callie really didn't have an excuse to get out of this.

"Hey, we're over here!" Mariana called to a nearby figure. Once they turned their head and caught sight of the two girls, Callie saw that it was Lexi, walking closer with a polite smile on her face.

Another person to drag her from store to store, just terrific.

"Hey, guys," Lexi greeted them politely, adjusting her purse of her shoulder.

"Let's get started!" Mariana cheered, and with one girl having a vice grip on either wrist, Callie was dragged into the depths of the mall.

The first store they hit was all jewelry, called Claire's. For the most part, they didn't complain about the darker, more grungy-looking things that caught Callie's eyes over the light and pink things they found. They even complimented her taste when she showed them a two-finger cross ring that was a dirty gold color. No more than five minutes later did Callie walk out with said ring, three pairs of small feather earrings and a pretty maroon scarf inside a bag hanging from her wrist.

They spent the next three hours going from every store from Forever 21 to Victoria's Secret.

Finally, after convincing Mariana that three new bras were enough, the trio unloaded themselves in the huge food court. Mariana went to get them smoothies from a Hawaiian themed stand, leaving Callie and Lexi to sort out the twenty different bags that they had with them.

"God, there must be four hundred dollars' worth of things here," Callie said as she tucked two of the smaller bags inside a bigger one.

Lexi brushed off her astonished statement with a good-natured shrug. "No biggie, it is your birthday after all."

"Still…" Callie said, rubbing her hands together, a habit she had grown to have when she felt anxious or nervous or guilty.

"Stef and Lena love spoiling their kids," Lexi insisted, "just because you've been with them the shortest amount of time doesn't mean they wouldn't do the same for you."

Callie blinked. She never heard someone else refer to her as one of their kids before. It was nice and set a fizzing feeling to her stomach, but in a good way.

They sat silence until a few short minutes later when Mariana came back, three colorful cold drinks in her arm. She handed Callie the yellow one, Lexi the orange, and kept the pink one for herself.

"And to think this was only from half of the mall," she commented lightly with a small shake of her head.

Callie nearly choked on her mouth, looking at her with her jaw nearly touching the floor. "You mean there's more?" she asked, her voice going an octave higher in horror.

* * *

**So the ending isn't the best but I didn't know how to end it. And I really wanted to get this up. It's all about one in the morning and I'm lying in a hotel room, in the dark.**

**I've been working on this on and off for about three to four days, and I feel great now that it's finally finished.**

**The next one , H, doesn't have a theme yet, but it will be Brandon/Callie for sure. So if you have any ideas for them that starts with H, I'm all ears.**

**Please review and tell me what you think because I love earing your feedback! Until my next update, later!**


	8. Help

**I believe a guest said the word Help, which inspired this chapter. I know this probably wasn't what they meant, but thinking about Brandon and Callie makes me think about music because it's what they both have in common, and then I started thinking, "whoa, it'd be cool if they let Maia sing on the Fosters," and boom, this was born.**

**Someone also requested I do Stef and Lena one-shots. The most I can give you on that note is some Stef/Lena action in here with Callie.**

**Song disclaimer: obviously I don't own Help by the Beatles.**

* * *

_Help_

brandon&callie

* * *

"I'm going to kill you!"

"No you won't!"

"Get back here!"

"Catch me if you can!"

Jesus ran into the house, throwing his backpack on the stairs and laughing as he ran through the kitchen. Callie ran in, hot on his heels as she chased him around the table, through the kitchen, and into the living room.

Using the distance to her advantage, Callie lunged and jumped on his back, tackling him to the couch.

Jesus laughed as Callie furiously pinned his shoulders to the couch, sitting on his stomach to keep him from going anywhere.

"Why would you do that?" she shrieked.

"You're really good!" he insisted.

Callie growled and proceeded to grab his pinned shoulders and shake him ruthlessly, threatening to yank Jesus' shoulders from their sockets.

"Whoa," a voice called from the entryway, causing them both to turn and look up. Stef stood in her uniform, keys hanging from her index finger and Lena not far behind her.

She wagged a finger between them, eyebrows raised at their awkward position. "What is going on here?"

Callie snapped her head back to glare down at the goofily smiling Jesus. "I'm about to pummel him!" she yelled before beginning to shake him again.

Stef stepped up and easily pulled Callie off and put her in the chair across from the couch before turning to Jesus and giving him a suspicious look.

"What did you do?" Stef asked.

Jesus grinned mischievously. "I signed Callie up for the talent show."

Lena looked to Callie, easily thrilled. "I didn't know you were looking into it!" She had always wanted one of their kids to be in the talent show, but Jesus always forgot about it, Mariana thought it was lame, and Brandon always insisted his auditions were similar to talent shows.

Callie scowled at her foster brother as he sat up. "I wasn't. But that didn't stop him from signing me up!"

"She's got lungs," Jesus said impressively, nodding his head like that proved his point.

Now Stef looked to Callie, looking curious herself. "I never knew you could sing."

Callie slumped against the chair. "That's because I can't."

"Can too," Jesus disagreed. "I heard you in the shower."

"That proves nothing. Everyone sounds good in the shower!"

Jesus grimaced as he recalled one school morning where he heard Mariana howling the newest Rihanna song. "I beg to differ."

Stef sighed. "We'll decide what to do with you later," she said to Jesus before pointing up the stairs.

Jesus snickered as Callie's head noticeably drooped, knowing she was in for a major momma meeting.

"Good luck with that," he muttered on his way past her.

Callie scowled and lunged for him, only to have Jesus laugh and dodge out of reach.

Once they heard his bedroom door shut, Lena and Stef turned to Callie.

"I think you should go for it," Lena said, with Stef standing beside her and nodding in huffed and crossed her arms. "I'm not any good."

"Well, Jesus apparently thought so," Stef said. "Why not give it a shot?"

"Our talent show could use some new acts," Lena thought aloud thoughtfully. "Every year they're the same. A new act would be a good change."

Callie huffed again, blowing a stray piece of hair from her face. "Even if I did—and that's a very strong _if_—I'd have no idea what to sing or how to sing it."

Stef looked like she was about to say something, but instead just sighed. "Just go upstairs and unwind for now, okay? Dinner's going to be ready soon."

Gratefully, the brunette breathed a big sigh of relief before jumping up and hurrying up the stairs. Just standing at the top of the stairs she could hear muffled music and loud banging of keys as Brandon practiced in his room.

Brandon—he'd know what to do, wouldn't he? This was music-related situation after all.

Stepping into his room, the incessant noise of him practicing grew louder, but over the months Callie had mastered the art of immediately adjusting to the sudden volume change.

Sneaking up behind him, Callie carefully grabbed both sides of his headphones and lifted them off his head.

Brandon, suddenly alert to his loud keyboard pounding and the lack of weight on his head, snapped around to see Callie hold his headphones, looking at him with raised eyebrows.

"What's that for?" he asked, sounding irritable. The Grim Reaper wanted this song done to perfection by Tuesday, giving him only four days to practice.

"I need your help with something," Callie said, ignoring his question completely.

"What?" Brandon asked warily.

Callie explained Jesus'(rather stupid, in her opinion)idea of signing her up for the talent show and ended it with her hands clasped together in a plea.

"So, please, I'm really desperate," Callie begged.

Brandon sighed, looking at his keyboard mournfully. The Grim Reaper would light his ass on fire if he didn't nail this piece.

"Fine," he caved, feeling dread as Callie brightened, knowing he was throwing himself under the bus. "What do you want me to do?"

* * *

Thank God it was a Friday night, was all Callie could repeat to herself mentally around eleven at night. Mariana was off with Lexi at some club slam with Garrett as well.

Her memories on the Beatles consisted of muffled memories of her mother's ratty record player that was always on, playing on of their albums at night or when she was cooking—the song Hey Jude played especially much when Jude was born for it being his namesake.

Callie could almost vividly remember humming the songs she heard nonstop to a three-year-old Jude when their parents fought all night, non-stop.

While _Help _hadn't been the most played one, it had always been one of her favorites. Callie couldn't pinpoint the exact reason why, especially since her life hadn't exactly been well associated with that word, but something about the way the music was and the lyrics just always made that song one of her favorites of the Beatles.

The only problem? Changing a song meant for four into a song for one was going to be a bit tricky, especially concerning how many spot there were that needed backup vocals.

Callie yawned, looking at her computer screen with tired eyes. She hadn't been on it for more than two hours, but she was exhausted from trying to strangle the life out of Jesus earlier and it had taken her forever to find the right sight with the lyrics and music to the song.

Thank God she had a good week to practice and prepare, or Callie would die before she ever reached her "shining moment."

Or something like that.

* * *

From Friday to Tuesday Callie respectively kept her distance from Brandon. She knew well enough from their talkative walks home that his music teacher was a pain when his music was absolute perfection, or as close you could get to it, and it made her feel slightly guilty that she had begged him and was driving him away from practice.

Instead Callie had spent Saturday and Sunday printing out things from the library's computers and re-writing the lyrics while only slightly tweaking the music to help fit the lyrical changes. She made she to practice everywhere-humming at lunch, on the walk home, singing in the shower, when she brushed her hair, even she was helping clear tables or wash the dishes.

Callie's lame solution to the supporting vocals was that, since he was going to be playing piano anyway, Brandon could. She had never really heard his singing voice (or, at least loudly anyway) but she bet it couldn't be any worse than hers.

Tuesday night, Brandon was the one to approach her, knocking on her already open bedroom door and coming in, pointing to her guitar and asking, "Are you going to play too?"

Callie looked up from the sheets of music and words in front of her, blowing a stray piece of hair from her face as she did. She slid her gaze over to her guitar, resting against the wall patiently. "I don't know, I guess."

Truthfully, Callie hadn't thought about her guitar much, instead focusing on the lyrics and how to keep her voice from going suddenly hoarse. But surely it couldn't hurt to use it, it may help in her favor and distract whoever the judges are—she'd assume some of the teachers—away from her voice.

Minutes later, Callie was sitting on the floor, leaning against the closed door of his room while Brandon sat at his piano, staring at the music sheet. Fortunately Callie had taken it into consideration and had printed off the piano version as well as just the original.

Never in her life did Callie picture the preparation for something as trivial and basic as a talent show to be such hard work.

Together they worked for three hours on the piece, breaking it into fragments by measures and even changing the tempos several times to make sure they had the song nailed.

It was nice. Callie found herself relaxing and forcing the worrisome part of all this out of her head, instead just focusing on Brandon, the music, and her voice. It struck her that Brandon's singing voice actually wasn't that bad. It was really kind of good.

For the first time she considered the actual idea of winning. Because for the first time it seemed possible.

* * *

Callie was nervous. Granted, she had been nervous before, but about major things that made this seem as big as an ant. She'd been nervous about how to feed Jude, how to take care of him, how life's plan was supposed to work out when it had sucked at the time. She had worried about her shelter with the Fosters lasting, that kind of thing a foster child thrown into the system several times has to worry about.

But this, this was normal teenage nervous, the normal kind of anxiety almost everyone could relate to. Callie had never been good with that type of nervous.

She wished Jesus had been there to laugh at her, or Mariana to chastise her for being so antsy, or Jude to hold her hand and tell her to relax. Brandon stood next to her, gripping the sheet music to their song and she could practically feel him vibrating beside her. Although this held nowhere near the same amount of pressure of one of his auditions, it was full house and still performing in front of hundreds of watching eyes, judging you to see if you were any better than their children.

"This is gonna be fine, right?" Callie said, watching as a small, freckled-face girl walked off stage, tangled with a tuba almost bigger than she was.

Brandon looked over at her, giving her one of his quirked smiles that always made you think something when it meant the other. "Oh, yeah."

Just from that Callie knew they were thinking the same thing—that's the thing with sharing a musical interest with somebody, you often shared the same doubts and fears: was it coming out right, was that the right position, was this going to sound right to other people, was she just making it sound good in her head?

Soon, much more sooner than she would have liked, Callie and Brandon walked on stage. The lights trained on them were bright, making her want to squint so badly, or to crawl under her bed's floorboards and stay there for a millennium or two. They were the last act, leaving them to be more comparable to all the previous ones, up for more judging.

With a deep breath, Callie shaking began strumming along as Brandon started out with the opening notes. Up until the very moment she had to sing, Callie worried—about her hair, her subtle make-up, her green skinny jeans and studded white top.

Then the lyrics began to flow. Although Brandon and Callie had spun the song more softly, making it gentler and the words softer, Callie lured herself into all the memories of her childhood, the ones she doubted Jude could remember even if he wanted to.

Callie was aware of her throat tightening, and the water gathering fast in the corner of her eyes. She could feel Brandon's sharp gaze as his eyes followed her back when she began walked back and forth on the stage, microphone on her ear and guitar in her arms.

She was aware the song stopped and her mouth was closed until his firm hand was resting lightly on her back, leading her offstage.

"You were amazing," he stated simply, putting on another quirked smile.

Callie smiled nervously back at him as her hands reached up to play with her high ponytail and her limbs gradually melted to jelly. "I'm never going that again," she muttered, shaking her head.

* * *

**Being the kind of person I am, I'll leave it to you to decide if they won or not.**

**Since people've had my ass for it before, I didn't put in the song lyrics, but I probably will if writing something like this again. Instead, I recommend for you to go to Youtube and give it a listen.**

**I've never been a big Beatles fan, but even I can admit that this song was a classic.**

**Some idea for I would be awesome, thanks loves.**

**(I'll choose whose chapter it is with Callie based on the ideas I get, so it's up to you guys!)**


	9. Innocence

**This is going to be another all/Callie one, because I enjoy doing these ones almost more than the Jesus/Callie ones. So feel free to tell me if you like these kinds as well.**

**And these are the only kinds I feel good at writing momma/Callie scenes so yeah, there's a bonus.**

**I have a PE test this week; someone please, help me.**

* * *

_Innocence_

fosters&callie

* * *

Stef and Lena, if asked, would be able to explain why they wanted Callie and Jude to join their family in a heartbeat.

Although, choosing just one answer was a completely different story.

It could be their sibling chemistry. It could be they family-like qualities the had.

But at the very beginning, with just Callie, they could be called something close to reluctant. And they stumbled, having let in an orphan girl out of juvie with bruises and cuts adorning her body in their house and interact with their children.

She was guarded-rough and sharp at the edges with tall walls it'd take a bulldozer or two to get past.

Then, something happened.

Jude.

Right away it became evident that he was the key to his sister's world. So important that without him, Callie wasn't a whole being.

You're probably thinking, now that they're together, why not ship them away to some other foster home?

Stef, having seen this first out of the two, instantly softened for the sibling duo. Maybe it was the way Callie reminded her of herself when it came to her own kids being thrown in the way of danger. Maybe it was how sad and lonely the two kids had seemed squished together in the backseat of that car that faithful day. But a pang in her chest reminded her that Jesus and Mariana-her babies-had once been in a similar position, albeit less violent.

With the relief of having Jude safe and sound, a gradual change went through Callie.

Lena, having always been an observant woman, noticed all the small tweaks in the girl's demeanor as they slowly began to grow bigger and bigger. She saw the way Callie relaxed around Brandon, sometimes letting her fingers tap along when her ears caught his loud practicing; she noticed how Callie allowed Jesus to take an interest in her, tentatively letting them form a close sibling bond; she saw the way Callie laughed when Mariana and her were forced together on dish duty and the soapy water got a little slushy.

Stef and Lena took this girl to heart, softening at her dark past and hard experiences she had forced herself to go through alone. Behind her sharp words and hard features, she was scared and wounded. Callie had let her innocence shine through once, and it was what got her in danger.

They were okay if she still hadn't learned to let it free in the Foster home.

Because one day, she would learn that it was okay.

* * *

Brandon had used a lot of words to describe girls in his life: naive, airheaded, bubbly, cheerful, graceful, pretty, hot.

But not as many words that came to mind with one topic-Callie.

She was different. She was rough, edgy, independent, forceful, gorgeous, smart, guarded.

And so many more things.

Callie herself knew most of these things, even if she didn't let herself believe it.

A lot of times Brandon found himself thinking about her, but not in a romantic way, just in a brotherly, protective view. By now everyone one in the house had one on her. Callie was fragile, and sometimes you had to treat her gently. Even though she often refused to let this side show when it needed to most, everyone knew it was there.

Take the Liam Thing, for example. It explained a lot, but left just as much unanswered and unrevealed.

Brandon often thought about Liam, and how someone could take someone so innocent and wreck that, cruelly stealing away the purity of someone so young and injured before.

The very thought made his eyes sting and fists clench.

No one should go through that.

Especially someone like Callie.

But, when too deep in thought about all the hurt and pain and suffering Callie had gone through, Brandon forced himself to remember all the good traits that had come across Callie—like her musical talent for instance. She was better than him at guitar and had a voice most girls would kill for, even Talia.

But he wouldn't dare say any of this out loud, especially to Callie herself. For one, she wouldn't believe it, so his kind words would be wasted on deaf, non-believing ears.

For another reason, it would be really weird for him to just shower her in compliments just out of the blue.

No matter how much he really wanted to, because she _deserved_ it.

* * *

Mariana wasn't the biggest Callie fan at the beginning. Everyone knew it.

Sure, she felt a little guilty for being rude to a girl she didn't know, but Mariana couldn't exactl be blamed—she was just easily frightened by the obvious injuries and juvie front.

Then, they got to know each other. Albeit it started out by unwillingly splitting her room in half, Mariana grew to love her like a sister. Because that's what they were. Sisters.

And she was no dummy—Callie's split personality may have been an occasional occurance, but Mariana was always around when it happened.

When Callie wasn't blocking people out and shooting sarcastic comments left and right (a personal defense no one took to heart), she could be quite childlike, which made her highly amusing to be around.

Like how she lit up at the thought of watching Disney movies (a habit she had developed during many weekends spent glued to the hip with Jesus), or how she laughed whenever the boys got a little throwy with their food.

(That kind of thing didn't happy very often, but boy did Callie get a kick out of it that one time on spaghetti night.)

Or all the times Callie gawked at how much Lena and Stef were willing to spend on them.

Callie's innocence to most of the manners in the Fosters household made Mariana really think at times. When she was younger, she was just like Callie.

And she could have still been that way if Stef hadn't found them when she did.

Whenever Mariana thought about this, she smiled, because Stef and Lena found Callie just in time too.

* * *

If Jesus were too tell anyone his first thoughts on Callie, they wouldn't believe him. And he knew why.

Everyone's first impression was that she was dangerous, and heartless. Jesus looked at her that first time at the dinner table and didn't see that, even with her dykes comment.

Sure, the word was hurtful, but then again, he figured she didn't know any better, and that kind of attitude was imprinted into her head a long time ago.

Instead, he saw his little sister sitting with him in the police station, the first time they'd met Stef, in fact.

Mariana had been scared, petrified even, to be around so many strange people and she had looked so tiny whenever one passed by the chairs they sat in.

Callie gave off that same kind of vibe when she first sat down.

Maybe that's what drew Jesus in—her childlike demeanor, how she seemed so cautious of the world, hiding all this secret pain she bared on her shoulders, all by herself.

That's why they grew so close, he wanted to get to know her, and she was convinced he was good enough to be let in. That's why they spent some Friday nights in his room, sharing a pair of headphones and trading bands and singers.

That's why some weekends were spent with them sitting in front of the TV, watching movies Callie didn't know existed.

Jesus knew she wasn't a crimminal; he knew that all the bad in her life, she wasn't guilty of. All the bad in her life was because of bad people—very stupid bad people.

Because if they were stupid enough to trash, and diminsh Callie's innocence the way she believe they did, well, trashers be damned

* * *

**Oh my god, please ignore the ending.**

**I hope this makes up for my long absence away from this story. Even though I know it doesn't.**

**The next one will be J/C, because the kick ass together. If you have any ideas for J, and would like to drop them in a review sometime, that'd be cool.**

**Until next time, babes.**


	10. Jolly

**Long time, no see, people.**

**Computer problems. My laptop is being a bitch and everything is going crazy, and I completely forgot what letter I was on, even though this is only the tenth chapter, so I was bit stuck there, and then busy with a bunch of other stuff, and yeah. Crazy life.**

**I will try to be more on task with updates throughout the month of October and all of November, because I honestly don't have much going on except for the whole ahhh-my-laptop's-a-raging-bitch thing, but I'm sure you can all relate.**

**To cheer myself up, I made this a J/C one because I forgot what sibling pairing I promised in the last chapter.**

**Sorry.**

* * *

_Jolly_

jesus&callie

* * *

It wasn't that she hated Christmas, she had just never celebrated it before.

Well, that wasn't technically true; she did the first ten years of her life, but then her mom died, and her father was soon locked away in prison after that, and all sense of holiday cheer had left her. Since then, it never seemed to return.

More like it didn't _try _to return. Her foster homes were loathe on giving orphans presents, and they quietly sat back and let them celebrate and open gifts and sing and get drunk and do all the things they thought they shouldn't be allowed to do.

But Jude had been pretty okay, at least that was what Callie had been telling herself every time she gave him a sucky plastic ring from the fifty cent machines at the closest Meijer, or a pack of Nerds or Skittles she snagged from the drug store.

Callie thought this gave all the explanation she needed as she held a box of ornaments up to Brandon, who was currently on a step ladder to finish up the tree. The star looked hung over, literally, as the top of the tree brushed the ceiling and threatened to send the wiry gold star falling to its doom on the living room floor.

"And we get our own presents?" Jude was busy asking Mariana and Lena in wonder. "Like, more than one per person?"

Callie perked up at this, but tried not to let herself show it. It wasn't that she wasn't allowing herself to excited for Christmas, that was just silly, but she needed the Fosters to think that her having a present wasn't a big deal. If it didn't happen, it didn't happen, just like all the years before.

"I think that should do it," Brandon announced. Callie looked up in time to see him pin the last string of silver tinsel to the tree, hopping down from the step stool and looking at his masterpiece. She couldn't help but think that he did so with a certan pride, even though she was sure he did this kind of thing every year before.

"Great job, B," Stef stated, coming in from the kitchen.

"The star's crooked," Jesus pointed out, thudding down the stairs.

Brandon rolled his eyes, going to put the stool away.

"I need the car!" Jesus announced. "The mall won't come to me."

"Dude, you're fifteen without a learner's permit," Stef told him with raised eyebrows.

"Why would you want to go to the mall, anyway?" Lena asked, standing. "It's a madhouse."

"I kinda put off shopping 'till the last minute," Jesus sheepishly explained, but then perked up. "Hey, you made Callie get her lisences last month. She can take me!"

"Um, spending a day in a place of full of people willing to break limbs for the perfect present?" Callie said. She shook her head. "No thank you."

Jesus widened his eyes a little in a pleading expression. "Aw, com'n Callie! It'd be a great opportunity to fulfill a sense of brother and sister bonding, don'tcha think?" He slung an arm around her shoulders and smiled widely.

Callie heard Mariana snort at this.

Finally, she relented, giving a sigh and shrugging his arm off of her. "If I agree to this unusual torture, will you stop with the bug-eyed puppy look? It's giving me the creeps."

* * *

They ended up going to the mall, just not the one Callie had been thinking of.

Callie didn't know much about geography, but she had been 99% sure that San Fransisco didn't have a city two miles away called Dalton. But there the rusty welcome sign had been as Jesus directed her to zoom in, claiming the mall was only another two miles away.

"I've never heard of this place," she stated as she carefully pulled in to a parking spot and killed the engine.

Jesus shrugged, halfway out of the car already. "Daltonians are modest people."

Apparently being modest people didn't keep them from having big ass malls. Callie stared at passing lit up signs for every store as they passed Jesus dragging her along.

"I came here last Christmas for presents," he explained when she asked how he knew about Dalton. "It seemed weird to me that their mall would be so freaking huge when their population is smaller than a bee hive, but it benefits me so I'm gonna question God's plan."

It just then occurred to her that Jesus had a floppy Santa on his head. That he hadn't been wearing when they left the house and pulled out of San Fransisco.

"Where'd you get the hat?" Callie asked, slightly breathless as she struggled to keep up with his long-legged strides.

"The car," Jesus responded simply and left it at that as he suddenly ducked into a nearby store. Callie followed, struggling to see anything in the dim store lighting. For such a big ass mall, shouldn't they be able to pay their electricity bill?

But there were a few details she could make out - for one, the carpet was orange. Not like a rusty, hip orange that Callie occasionally saw swatches of in Mariana's various fashion magazines, but a really bright carrot orange.

Another thing: everything in the store was vintage.

Callie always associated the word 'vintage' with 'old', in the same trendy way teenagers did because that's the only definition of vintage she's ever had.

But this store took it to a whole other level.

There were racks of leather jackets, bell bottoms, tie-dye outfits, chunky jewelry and long, silky head scarfs. It was a bit overwhelming.

But some of the stuff wasn't that bad. Callie found herself leaning close to examine a caramel leather jacket that hung patiently on a rack near the entrance.

"Aye Callie, what'cha think of this?" Jesus called to her from somewhere in the back of the store.

Callie let go of the jacket's sleeve and hurried down the narrow aisle to where Jesus stood, looking up at a black backpack with studs and hanging strips of fringe. She reached up to run her fingers down the soft material of the bag.

"It's really pretty," Callie said, turning to look at him. Then she furrowed her eyebrows; she had assumed that they were shopping for either Lexi or Mariana when they had dipped into this store, but this bag didn't seem like either of their styles. "Who were you thinking of buying it for?"

Instead of answering her question, Jesus dodged it altogether by grabbing her wrist and dragging her towards the exit. "Come along!" he cried, and made a beeline down the practically deserted corridor of the Dalton mall.

Their next stop was a music store called Lenny's Spins, which sold every musical item from old records to the newest, most updated version of whatever Apple product your heart could desire.

Callie blinked several times. Unlike their first store, Lenny's was brightly lit and had several try-me products lighting up some neon color. After the bright spots in front of her went away, Callie flipped through a couple albums mindlessly, just to see what was there. Only a few caught her attention though - an old Beatles album that she entertained the idea of herself owning, and the album of some guy named Nat King Cole, who simply caught her attention because he was an oddly pretty man.

Once she had managed to rip her attention away from the old records, which had been oddly more fascinating than Callie had imagined them being, she made a beeline to where she had earlier seen several instruments.

True to what her eye had seen, there was a guitar locked up safe and tight in a glass display case, packages of spare guitar strings and picks hanging from the wall. Below that were a bunch of different cleaning products for keyboards and different headphones that made her head spin from how big they were. (Almost like they were invented for the very purpose of squeezing someone's head like a pimple, she thought.)

Oh yes, this store definitely cried out Brandon's name, all right.

"Come on, Callie! We gotta get this show on the the road!"

Callie turned from the instruments to see Jesus standing just outside the door, his hands empty of any bags.

What was up with this dude? Did he plan on dragging her to a bunch of different stores without buying any presents?

That, Callie realized four stores later, was exactly what he planned on doing.

They went from a comic store to an ancient bookstore to a more modern, stylish clothing store, to a video game store, all of which Jesus didn't buy a thing from.

"What the hell was that?" Callie asked as she pulled out of the parking lot and into the street.

She caught Jesus smiling as he shrugged his shoulders out of the corner of her eye. "What was what?" he asked dumbly, then went to turn up the radio, drowning out whatever follow-up questions she may have had.

* * *

Three days later on Christmas morning, the weird shopping fiasco with her foster brother had been pushed to the back of Callie's mind, especially because Jude had decided Christmas morning would allow him to wake her up by jumping on her bed at eight am.

Gosh, didn't the younger generation know it was okay to open presents at a much more godly hour of the day?

"Wake up! Wake up! Wake up, it's Christmas, Callie! It's Christmas!" Jude punctuated his every word with a jump, just narrowly missing all of Callie's important parts - like useful limbs and organs she would like to keep in the condition they were in.

"Ugh, I'm aware of the date, dude," Callie groaned, not meaning to come off as rude as she did, but the kid had rudely interrupted the greatest gift of all - sleep. "Can my present be that my organs continue functioning properly?"

Jude took a hint and hopped off, but not before yelling, "Come on! There is a mountain of presents downstairs waiting for us!" and running out of her room so fast Callie could've sworn she saw smoke.

She twisted her way out of her sheets, and ran a hand through her hair as she got up. Mariana's bed was already made up, but no stray make-up or hair supplies proved that she was around and ready.

Lena did say something to Stef and the kids that her mother and father planned on coming to spend the holidays with them, but that it wouldn't be exactly on Christmas. Callie thought about this as she made her way down the stairs. Hopefully that meant Stef and Lena weren't expecting her to be around until the presents and a couple more much needed hours of sleep were under Callie's belt.

"Morning, Sleepyhead," Lena called from her position next to wife on the couch. "And Merry Christmas!"

Callie grumbled something similar as she sunk to her knees in between Jude and Jesus, who both had presents halfway open and in their laps.

Her and Jesus's little adventure to the Dalton mall came back to her mind. "Hey, Jesus?"

He looked up, almost done with ripping off a sparkly red and gold bow from a triangular present. "Yeah?"

"What was up with that freaky mall trip the other day?"

Brandon began to snicker, coming in from the kitchen. "Looks like you're busted, bro."

Callie raised her eyebrows at this. "Jesus?" she said warily. "What're you planning?"

Stef sighed, leaning forward to knock her son's shoulder. "You better tell the poor girl," she exclaimed, taking a sip from her coffee mug. "Or, better yet, show her."

Jesus nodded and stood, pulling a very confused Callie up with him. "Follow me!" he cried dramatically, taking her wrist in his hand pulling her behind the huge Christmas tree.

Callie furrowed her eyebrows. "So? It's a big pile of presents. A lot like the ones in front of the tree, just not tampered with."

He chuckled, knocking their shoulders together. "Yeah, but read the cards."

Oh yeah, he was definitely planning something.

But Callie knelt down anyway, grabbing the nearest one and reading the attached tag.

It read simply 'To Callie'.

She grabbed another, smaller but still square shaped. It must have been a jewelry box of some kind. Again, the label read her name - no From. Just her name.

"What is this? A secret Santa project?" she suggested, looking up at Jesus with the small box just in her hands.

He laughed and began grabbing a couple presents and bringing them to front of the tree. Callie sighed, realizing he wouldn't give her an answer, an grabbed a few herself. It dawned on her there must have been twenty presents at least in that one pile, all of which read her name on them.

"Let Callie open hers first!" Lena insisted once the pair had finished transporting the mountain of presents to the middle of the living room.

Jesus gently knocked his shoulder against her, pushing her forward. "Go ahead, dig in."

Callie sunk to her knees and reached for the one of the top. It was square-like and rustled when she brought into her lap. Suddenly grinning madly, like a kid of Christmas, quite literally, she tore the paper to shreds, ridding the tape pieces and torn snowmen from the gift.

She gave a gasp, twisting to look at the smirking Jesus behind her.

"The jacket! You freaking sneak!"

Callie leaned backwards and hit at his knee with her arm, but was too giddy to mean it.

In her lap sat the caramel jacket she had been eying in that vintage store he'd dragged her into the other day. Everything clicked into place that moment.

"You dragged me all over the mall to find out what to buy me," Callie recapped in realization.

Jesus nodded, plopping down beside her to pull her into a side hug. "Right on the money. Merry Christmas, Callie."

* * *

**Eh, not the best, but I've been in a Christmas-y mood lately and boom, this was born.  
**

**Sorry for all of my slow updates, but I'm trying. Promise.**

**Review to tell me your ideas for K and what pairing you might want to see.**


End file.
